Ontology (ONT), a high-performance or “high-throughput” blockchain platform with a market cap of over $510 million in line with CoinGecko information, revealed on August 14, 2020 that it has accomplished the event of the following stage of its open-source DID sensible contract – which has been applied on the Ethereum (ETH) community.

The Ontology crew says that the replace has “considerably expanded” the capabilities of the distributed ledger tech (DLT)-based platform’s decentralized id ecosystem.

As famous by the Ontology crew:

“Having outlined the DID specification, submitted the required W3C registration, and concluded the DID sensible contract improvement, Ontology’s bespoke Decentralized Identification Options now [offer] even larger chain interoperability and heightened technological capabilities.”

Ontology’s Decentralized Identification Options, which now embrace a brand new sensible contract technique (known as did:etho:), could also be used throughout the Ethereum community, together with decentralized finance (DeFi) purposes. The brand new characteristic may additionally be utilized by most blockchains that help the Ethereum Digital Machine (EVM) which goals to simulate capabilities discovered on the precise Ethereum community, together with different options.

The Ontology builders confirmed:

“[We] goal to make [these] Decentralized Identification options accessible throughout any chain, as a part of its ongoing effort to attain full cross-chain performance.”

Li Jun, Founding father of Ontology, acknowledged:

“Consistent with Ontology’s outlined goal to rework key processes pertaining to the administration of people’ information, we’re delighted to construct on the numerous progress that has been made with respect to our ever-expanding decentralized id ecosystem. Efficiently finishing the open-source decentralized identifier sensible contract improvement on the caliber of Ethereum is one other milestone in what [we believe] has been a … profitable Q3 for our platform.”

Ontology, which makes a speciality of digital id and safe information administration, just lately launched “Ontology Mercury,” which is described as a trusted, Decentralized Identifier (DID) primarily based peer-to-peer (P2P) communication framework.

The Ontology crew additionally just lately launched new Decentralized Identification Options, which have been developed to help digital asset holders and merchants with managing and exchanging cryptocurrencies in a safe and streamlined method.

As reported, the Ontology crew is engaged on initiatives with the builders of the NEAR protocol. It’s additionally working with the creators of the Elrond Community and Waves Platform, in an effort to help the continued improvement of safe decentralized id options.

Peer to see (P2P) traders based mostly in China are reportedly dealing with losses of over 800 billion yuan (appr. $115 billion) in unpaid debt, because of failed lending platforms, in response to the top of the nation’s banking trade regulator.

Guo Shuqing, chairman of the Chinese language Banking Regulatory Fee, acknowledged throughout an look on nationwide tv that the nation’s regulators shall be working cooperatively with police officers with a purpose to get well (or a minimum of attempt to) the funds, Bloomberg reported.

China has been conducting in depth investigations into the operations of P2P lenders as a result of there have been many fraudulent schemes carried out by scammers exploiting the rising sector.

The variety of P2P lenders working in China has been diminished from about 6,000 to solely 29, following the government-led crackdown.

China’s P2P lending sector had managed to draw almost 50 million traders at its peak. It had additionally acquired round $150.5 billion in debt excellent, earlier than the nation’s authorities started to launch investigations after quite a few stories of fraudulent actions.

President Xi Jinping had ordered a nationwide crackdown on the potential monetary danger within the sector which has resulted in a a lot smaller peer to see lending sector (after most of the fraudulent providers have been taken down).

The most important rip-off reportedly concerned Ezubao, a P2P platform that carried out a significant Ponzi scheme to lift greater than 58 billion yuan or over $eight billion from greater than 900,000 traders.

Regardless of these severe points, China’s P2P lender Lufax is planning to conduct an IPO within the US. Ppdai.com, which is one in every of China’s oldest P2P lending platforms, listed on the New York Inventory Change again in 2017.

Along with scams involving P2P lending, a $5.7 billion+ cryptocurrency associated rip-off, known as Plus Token, concentrating on hundreds of thousands of Chinese language traders, was uncovered and it led to over 100 arrests.

In April 2020, UK-based P2P lender and digital financial institution Zopa warned that scammers have been taking benefit of the present scenario. In response to a report from Motion Fraud, sufferer losses as a result of fraudulent exercise associated to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) in March 2020 have been almost £970,000 (in the UK).

Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd. (TSX: GLXY) (OTC: BRPHF), a monetary providers agency that focuses on digital property, printed its Galaxy Digital Holdings LP’s and GDH Ltd.’s monetary outcomes on August 14, 2020.

Galaxy Digital CEO Michael Novogratz famous that its Q2 2020 and year-to-date outcomes “replicate a dynamic cryptocurrency and blockchain know-how sector with a number of optimistic tailwinds, in addition to our companies’ cumulative investments in market relationships, differentiated options, and infrastructure.”

The Galaxy Digital Founder added:

“Whether or not it’s newly introduced partnerships, constant inflows into Asset Administration, robust volumes in Buying and selling, new mandates in Funding Banking or new and follow-on enterprise investments, Galaxy Digital is transferring shortly to benefit from the broad digital asset alternative set.”

As confirmed in a launch, Galaxy Digital started buying and selling on the Toronto Inventory Trade (“TSX”), after graduating from the TSX Enterprise Trade. The corporate additionally finalized its share repurchase program in April of this yr, which concerned round 4.9 million shares valued at about 5.5 million CAD.

Galaxy Digital famous that Ian Taylor, the agency’s Head of Funding, will likely be resigning quickly and Galaxy is now searching for an appropriate alternative.

Throughout Q2 2020, the Principal Investments crew at Galaxy Digital finalized two new and 4 follow-on investments, which had been valued at $5.7 million, the discharge said.

The discharge additional famous:

“Investments made in the course of the second quarter carry capital deployed for the six months ended June 30, 2020 to $19.9 million represented by 2 new investments and 9 follow-on investments. Investments made (together with loans bought) from January 9, 2018 by means of June 30, 2020 whole $201.5 million and are represented by 37 new and 39 follow-on investments.”

The report added that as of June 30, 2020, Galaxy Digital Capital Administration had $375.Four million price of property below administration (AUM).

These embrace the Galaxy Benchmark Crypto Index Fund LP – $10.5 million (as “calculated per the phrases of the fund’s partnership settlement”); Galaxy Bitcoin Fund, LP, Galaxy Institutional Bitcoin Fund, LP, and Galaxy Institutional Bitcoin Fund, Ltd. – $39.eight million; and Galaxy EOS VC Fund LP dedicated capital – $325.zero million.

The corporate reported a complete web revenue of $38 million, which is considerably decrease than the $113.eight million it earned throughout the identical interval in 2019. Nevertheless, Galaxy’s latest efficiency continues to be rather a lot higher from the earlier quarter when the corporate reported a lack of $27 million.

Wall Road seems to have taken the information positively, with the agency’s inventory rising 7% on August 14, 2020 (the day the outcomes had been made public).

Galaxy Digital’s administration famous:

“The present quarter achieve was largely a results of realized achieve on digital property, i.e. cryptocurrencies which commerce constantly out there.”

Galaxy additionally revealed that greater than $1 billion in quantity was traded by way of its over-the-counter (OTC)  desk. The corporate claims that there was “a rise in actively buying and selling counter-parties and buying and selling volumes relative to the primary quarter of 2020 regardless of seeing some near-historic low volatility within the area.”

Final yr, Galaxy Digital recorded a web loss of $68.2 million throughout Q3 2019. In October 2019, the corporate had launched two new Bitcoin funds.

Yam Finance, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, not too long ago noticed its token value come crashing all the way down to zero inside minutes on August 13, 2020. Different DeFi tokens resembling Balancer, Compound, Steadiness, and Yearn Finance additionally crashed.

Compound, which is the second-largest DeFi protocol, proper behind MakerDAO, noticed its market cap fall by round $100 million on August 13. In the meantime, Balancer and Yearn fell by 13% and seven%, respectively on the identical day.

As defined by dapp.com:

“Yam is an experimental protocol constructing upon essentially the most thrilling improvements in programmable cash and governance. Constructed by a group of DeFi natives, it seeks to create an elastic provide to hunt eventual value stability.”

Yam has additionally established a so-called “governable” treasury to “additional assist stability.” It reportedly helps full on-chain governance to allow “decentralized” management and “evolution from Day 1.” It has a “truthful” distribution mannequin that goals to reward key group members to “actively take the reins of governance,” the Dapp.com group notes.

The Yam protocol managed to change into fashionable within the rising DeFi house because the second “purely decentralized” initiative after Yearn Finance. Yam holders have been in a position to “govern” the open-source protocol, by introducing a “decentralized” governance mannequin.

Nonetheless, Yam co-founder Brock Elmore famous on August 13 that the protocol had a crucial bug that crippled Yam’s governance system.

Elmore famous:

“I’m sorry everybody. I’ve failed. Thanks for the insane assist at the moment. I’m sick with grief.”

The Yam improvement group acknowledged the problem by noting:

“Shortly after 7am UTC on Thurs August 13th, we submitted a governance proposal and forged a vote with what we initially believed have been ample votes to have the ability to enact it. Shortly thereafter, with assist from safety specialists, we concluded that the rebaser bug would work together with the governance module and forestall this proposal from succeeding.”

On account of its decentralized nature, when Yam initially launched, it had allowed customers to stake numerous digital currencies as a way to earn Yam tokens. The staking mannequin let the Yam protocol hand out its native tokens in a clear method, its builders declare.

The distribution mannequin grew to become so fashionable that nearly $500 million in worth had been locked within the Yam protocol inside solely 24 hours.

Yam first started opening staking swimming pools for Aave’s Lend, Compound (COMP), Chainlink (LINK), Wrapped ETH (WETH), YFI, Synthetix (SNX), Maker (MKR), and Uniswap Model 2.Zero LP tokens. Nonetheless, nearly all of the tokens utilized in Yam staking swimming pools crashed, when the bug appeared.

Many of the DeFi market tokens went by way of a value correction after the Yam builders acknowledged that the protocol had a bug, which resulted within the DeFi index perpetual swap contract on FTX to fall sharply, resulting in a crash of the DeFi market.

Though digital property staked by way of Yam weren’t misplaced, the worth of Yam tokens fell sharply to zero. The vast majority of Yam tokens being held by customers have been equipped by way of staking, nevertheless, there have been some customers who purchased them from Uniswap or different non-custodial exchanges.

Regardless of these points, Yam Model 2.Zero is now being developed. Elmore claims that he’ll solely participate within the venture if there’s a fork (improve) of the unique Yam protocol and likewise provided that it completes a 4-week skilled audit.

Yam’s improvement group has printed a migration plan that recommends migrating present tokens to a correctly functioning and upgraded platform.

Final month, a report confirmed that the DeFi sector had skilled explosive progress, after cryptocurrencies crashed on Black Thursday (in March 2020), identical to conventional monetary markets.

Whereas DeFi appears to be a promising new section within the bigger crypto and blockchain trade, it’s in its early levels of improvement and plenty of so-called decentralized protocols have skilled quite a few hacks or suffered from some type of safety breach or technical points.

, which permits customers to finish gamified micro-tasks or store on-line whereas incomes as a lot as 87.5% cryptocurrency again as a StormX rewards member, is now permitting prospects to earn cashback in digital currencies once they store at a Walmart retailer.

StormX customers will be capable of earn as much as 4% cashback in cryptocurrency on all purchases from Walmart. Customers with a “Diamond” rank or standing might get as a lot as 14%.

Simon Yu, CEO at StormX, acknowledged that the Walmart partnership may doubtlessly carry new customers to the service. Yu claims that his firm is the primary to supply cashback in crypto to Walmart prospects.

StormX has partnered with 650 retailers, in order that they’re in a position to supply cashback in cryptocurrency. The companions reportedly embrace Microsoft, eBay, Nike, Adidas, Goal, Dell and Samsung. StormX claims it has distributed over $2 million in crypto cashback to its customers.

Yu famous in a weblog publish that the corporate’s on-line gross sales are up 76% year-over-year. Yu added that for the reason that firm’s cell launch of “Store” on the StormX app, it’s now at greater than 257,000 distinctive customers in solely 5 months.

Final 12 months, StormX launched a Chrome internet extension permitting customers to make direct purchases (on-line) from the pc.

In 2019, the corporate added stablecoin Dai and Litecoin (LTC) as further crypto again choices.

Throughout Q1 2020, StormX launched updates that allow customers store with lots of of shops being supported throughout the globe. The corporate additionally launched procuring in South Korea final 12 months. It has turn out to be its second-largest market. With the intention to meet buyer demand and necessities, the corporate has added Korean language assist.

StormX additionally launched looking for Android and iOS and now has greater than 70,000 lively customers monthly.

Throughout Q2 2020, StormX launched its Rewards Program in order that customers can earn as a lot as 3.5x crypto again at each retailer. StormX’s STMX token has now been listed on Uniswap and KyberSwap, which marks the corporate’s “first step” into DeFi.